Scientist used fraudulent data on government-funded project

The scientist did not hang around waiting for investigators to start asking awkward questions and poking through his research notes.

When allegations surfaced that he had been cooking his experimental data, the professor bailed.

He quit his job at a Canadian university and landed a position at a “new Institution,” according to documents obtained by Postmedia News.

The scientist, who had been a principal investigator on a government-funded research project, had been using fraudulent experimental data, one of the most serious types of research misconduct, the documents say.

Neither the university involved nor federal officials will elaborate on the case that has renewed calls for a revamp of the way research misconduct is dealt with in Canada.

“Our present system doesn’t serve anyone well,” said James Turk, executive director of the Canadian Association of University Teachers.

“It doesn’t serve the public well. It doesn’t serve those who are concerned about research misconduct well, and it doesn’t serve those accused of research misconduct well.”

This case, described in heavily censored documents released under the access to information law, is one of the worst cases of misconduct to come to the attention of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council in recent years.

NSERC, one of Canada’s lead science funding agencies, awards close to $1-billion a year to more than 11,000 academics across the country.

Since 2006, NSERC says it has banned two scientists from receiving funding indefinitely because of misconduct — including the aforementioned academic, who the documents say engaged in “fraud and the fabrication of research results.”

The scientist’s name, and the name of university involved, are being kept secret, as is the type of research involved and how many Canadian tax dollars were spent on his fraudulent experiments.

NSERC refuses even to say if the scientist’s new institution, which the documents suggest may be outside Canada, is aware of his history of fraud.

“NSERC was prohibited by the Privacy Act from informing the new institution of its findings,” NSERC’s media office said when asked if the institution had been informed. As for the university, NSERC wouldn’t comment on whether it had passed on the information, saying: “We cannot speak to the actions of the Canadian university.”

The documents say the university’s investigation report on the misconduct “has not been widely circulated “ as it is “subject to privacy legislation.”

The documents do give a skeletal version of what transpired after another scientist informed the unidentified Canadian researcher in June 2008 “that her lab was unable to reproduce results from several of [his] experiments.”

Other scientists also reported the results were “flawed” and allegations that “significant portions of the research were fraudulent” were formally presented to university officials in July 2008, the documents say.

It took months to launch a full investigation, and by then the scientist was long gone.

He “resigned his employment at the university concurrent with the timing of the allegations of misconduct against him,” the university vice-president reported to NSERC in July 2009. “At this time, he has no active association with our university; It is my understanding that he is now employed at another institution.”

The university, which had to be “reminded” twice by NSERC officials of the requirement to investigate and report misconduct to the council under the federal research rules, began a full investigation into the allegations in January 2009, more than six months after the concerns were raised.

The investigators, who interviewed witnesses and reviewed experimental data, concluded in June 2009 that the researcher engaged in “academic fraud.”

The scientist had co-authors on his studies but the university investigation found no evidence “that any person other than [the unidentified researcher] was directly involved in the fraud and the fabrication of research results.”

The university told NSERC it “was limited in the steps it could take in the circumstances” as the researcher was no longer at the university.

But it said it was taking steps to determine if ”the fraud is relevant to any other publications” or technologies the university was seeking to commercialize and taking steps to minimize disruption of the work of other students and researchers.

NSERC reviewed the university’s findings and in October 2009 decided to ban the scientist from all future NSERC funding.

The researcher was given a chance to comment but did not respond by December 2009, at which point NSERC’s ban went into effect, the documents say.

Turk said the case appears typical of the “badly flawed” system for dealing with research misconduct, which he said does not instil public trust in the country’s multi-billion-dollar research enterprise.

“The vast majority of researchers are highly ethical, but if we are committed to maintaining public trust, then we have to deal with misconduct forthrightly,” said Turk, who is involved in a national research integrity forum exploring better ways of dealing with misconduct.

Misconduct procedures vary widely across provinces, universities and private or government labs, Turk said. And it appears much misconduct goes unreported, he added, pointing to NSERC misconduct records.

NSERC says that, since 2006, it has banned two researchers indefinitely from funding because of misconduct, and cut off funding to two other scientists for five years or less — figures that show how “ludicrous” the current system is, said Turk.

It is estimated anywhere from one to 20% of academics have engaged in or witnessed misconduct, which can include plagiarism, misrepresentation and fabrication of results.

Using the 1% estimate, there must have been far more than four instances of misconduct among the 11,800 academics NSERC funds, Turk said.